Sum it Up! #48 is an eclectic batch of cowboys, cases and conferences that you may wish to put on your calendar.
Markus Schantz left the legal profession. His blog “Chicago Criminal Defense” has excellent posts about law and a cold case. Markus has embarked on a multi-pronged career. He is writing and works as a cowboy. He explains that transition in this post. Good luck, Markus!
My friends on Twitter know that I love to receive links to news articles I might overlook from across the pond.
@Pam_nAshes alerted me to this case from 1930. Technically, the case is not cold because there was a conviction. However, the conviction did not answer all the questions. The 1930 Northamptonshire ‘blazing car’ murder case has a new discovery.
From the BBC: “A man was hit over the head with a mallet and burned to death in a Morris Minor near Northampton in 1930. Alfred Rouse was later hanged for the crime and took the name of his victim to the gallows. Now, a team led by the University of Leicester have uncovered DNA which they hope will reveal his identity.
A different team of forensic scientists took on the blazing car murder case and obtained a tissue sample taken from the victim during his post-mortem examination. Along with his jawbone, the sample had been archived in the 1930s at the department of forensic medicine at the London Medical College, now Queen Mary College. The key to solving the riddle would be finding enough mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in the sample to get a profile to compare with the family’s mtDNA. Fortunately, the scientists obtained a full single male mtDNA profile from the slide to compare.” Read the article to see who this man might have been! Thanks, Pam.
@Debbie_Green19 sent me a cold case from Brisbane, Australia. “Forty years ago, Vicky and Leanne McCulkin (13 and 11-year-old) vanished from their modest inner suburban Brisbane home with their mother Barbara. Police believe the children suffered violent deaths in front of 34-year-old Barbara, before the killers then turned on the woman. The motive, homicide detectives now theorise, was to cover up the killers’ sustained sexual abuse of the innocent young girls.”
The article in the Brisbane Times sketches a cruel, violent case. “Acting Superintendent Dowie said he believed there were multiple people who held the key to finally solving the crime. He said he hoped that after 40 years, and with a $250,000 sweetener on offer, someone would finally ease their conscience by coming forward with key evidence.” If you have any information, please contact Crime Stoppers Australia online. Thank you, Debbie!
Through the mail came a message from a woman wondering what happened to her sister Robyn Abrams. The Charley Project has information about Robyn’s case too.
Guest blogger Pete Klismet will be back with another amazing post. Pete was interviewed on the radio after the school shooting in New Mexico. That interview can be found here. Just scroll down to January 14, 2014.
Pam also sent me an article about a secret room hidden inside the ruins of a Scottish castle that has been opened for the first time in more than 500 years! I love historical mysteries!!! From the Daily Mail: “Historians have admitted they don’t know what the room was used for, and all that has been found inside are a few fragments of bone. Due to the castle’s remote location- a a mile from the village of Kilchoan in Lochaber, Scotland – it has not been touched since it fell into ruin and was abandoned in the late eighteenth century.” I cannot wait to learn more about this. Thanks again, Pam!
Till the next Sum it Up!